So What’s the Next iPhone Going To Be Called?

Your brand new iPhone X ain’t that brand new anymore, and as it passes the six-month marker of its existence, one has to wonder “What’s next?” No doubt a new fleet of iPhones from Apple, but even that presumption presents yet another question posed by philosophers across the internet: “What’s the next iPhone gonna be called?” What, indeed, you great thinker.

While we’re pretty much still in the dark about the name of Apple’s iPhone X successor, we’ve got a pretty decent idea about one other iPhone, the low-end SE. Reporter Evan Blass shared a cropped screenshot of a document simply stating, next to some blurred out text: “Project Name: iPhone SE (2018).” While it’s by no means a confirmation that Apple is sticking with the iPhone SE moniker for its next low-end phone, it does show that the company still believes in some form of consistency when it comes to naming its mobile devices.

But what of its other products, the ones that steal the show and captivate us with flashy new features and chamfered edges? What of the cool iPhone? Below, with the help of my fellow Gizmodo staffers, is a list of likely names for the successor to Apple’s £1000 iPhone X. They’re pretty good:

iPhone X2

Apple Phone

iPhone Forever

MacPhone

iPhone Shuffle

iPhone xXx

iPhone X1, but tell people to pronounce it “11”

The New iPhone

Apple’s track record at properly naming its devices isn’t exactly spotless. The successor to the iPhone 7, what’s now known as the iPhone 8, would have been named the iPhone 7s had Apple stuck with the naming convention it established in 2012 with the iPhone 3GS. Its fourth-generation iPad mini is, aptly named, the iPad mini 4, while its fourth-generation iPad is called...iPad. You see where I’m going with this.

The more mental effort spent trying to divine the name of the next device destined to inhabit your pocket for at least 12 months, the more it feels like a legitimate philosophical quandary. What will the next iPhone be called? What will the name of your firstborn child be? Why do names have power over us?

By the way, I’d be fine with calling it “iPhone 11,” but that’s just me. Give us a call, Tim.